Monterey County rescinds 'guiding principles' for Fort Ord

Reversing course, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously rescinded its approval of a controversial set of "guiding principles" for reuse of Fort Ord that set off a firestorm last month.

Acknowledging the issue was mishandled, Supervisor Dave Potter moved to rescind the guiding principles in their entirety and allow the Fort Ord Reuse Authority board to discuss the issue first.

Potter backed the board's early December approval of the principles on the consent agenda despite a call from Supervisor Jane Parker for a more thorough review, but he said Tuesday he was concerned about a provision that would have excluded area cities without land-use authority on the former military base from voting on related land-use issues.

That would have allowed representatives from the county and the cities of Monterey, Seaside, Marina and Del Rey Oaks a land-use vote, while Carmel, Pacific Grove, Sand City and Salinas would have been left out.

Potter said Tuesday many area jurisdictions had been affected by the closure of Fort Ord in the 1990s, including those without specific land-use authority over the former base.

The principles were formulated by members of the FORA administrative committee, each representing a jurisdiction with land-use authority on Fort Ord, apparently in an attempt to answer opposition to redevelopment on the former base.

The principles were designed to guide the board's implementation of the 1997 reuse plan reassessment, and included other disputed provisions, such as calling on FORA to complete capital improvements before the agency's 2020 dissolution and remaining within the current base reuse plan to avoid new environmental review.

But the proposed principles stalled last month before the FORA board formally considered them amid an uproar from environmental interests and other watchdog groups, and State Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel, who wrote recent legislation extending FORA's life for another six years.

Opponents, including Sierra Club representative Jane Haines and Landwatch Executive Director Amy White, argued Tuesday that some of the principles, such as the voting restrictions, contravened FORA's regional nature, made the base reuse plan reassessment essentially irrelevant and would require new legislation to implement.

Parker said those were the concerns that prompted her to call for further review in December.

There were suggestions that those who wrote the principles may have violated the state's open meetings laws in the process.

The supervisors gave water resources agency officials the go-ahead to oppose the state water board's proposed revocation of a 55-year-old Salinas River surface water diversion permit.

That included allowing formation of an ad hoc committee charged with developing a list of potential water projects that would need the river water, and seeking a funding source for developing selected projects at an estimated cost of up to $1 million per year over three years.

The state water board has tentatively scheduled a public hearing on the proposed revocation for mid-April at board headquarters in Sacramento.